We're liable to see empty seats at RIR tonight for the first time in 17 years, and a sour economy is only the half of it. Yeah, $80 tickets and $3.60-per-gallon petrol squeeze Joe Fan's discretionary income. Toss in a night or two at the Red Roof, a few meals, some cotton candy and a T-shirt for the kiddies, and a family needs to take out a second mortgage to go racin' nowadays.

Assuming it hasn't already rescinded its loyalty oath to the sport.

Fewer people are pledging allegiance to NASCAR these days, and it's not just because their pockets are shallower, it's because they're estranged. They're like the hippies of the '60s -- turned off and tuning out (presumably minus the purple haze). France Family U. has only itself to blame.

This isn't the start of an obituary. NASCAR isn't in jeopardy of becoming Linens-N-Things or Skybus. It's not about to go belly-up. But it's in an extended rut marked by declining turnstile counts and TV ratings (although the Nielsens are up a tick this year), and the trend continues.

Seats unwarmed by fannies are noticeable across the circuit this year -- Martinsville, Atlanta, Phoenix, Texas.

Richmond, which seemingly couldn't toss up grandstands fast enough to satisfy demand, once was immune from this sort of cloud cover.

No longer.

"There's a lot of discussion over the last couple of years about whether fan interest has leveled off," said Jon Ackley, who teaches a business-of-NASCAR course at VCU. "NASCAR says it has 70 million fans. The last two or three years, those numbers don't seem to hold as much weight as they did in the past. It's clear people aren't watching the races as devoutly as they did in the past."

The sport's bedrock is in Virginia and the Carolinas, in Georgia and the Tennessee hills, and a number of those folks have become lapsed NASCAR worshipers.

They've watched Brian France steer NASCAR to the West Coast, watched him abandon Rockingham and strip Darlington of the Southern 500, watched him build cookie-cutter tracks that render much of the racing unwatchable, watched him create a one-template-fits-all car that obliterates distinctions between models, watched him welcome a furriner (Toyota) onto the starting grid.

Listened and grimaced as trendy rock stars replaced country singers for the national anthem.

Don't laugh. That stuff matters to more people than you know.

"I think NASCAR has gotten away from capitalizing on tying the sport to the average person," is how Ackley put it. "Those little things start to add up. It disillusions and disenfranchises NASCAR fans."

Even France can sense wind currents of revolt when they knock him off-stride. That's maybe why he conceded during his preseason press op that NASCAR had lost its way some and needed to get back to basics -- whatever he interprets that to mean.

Problem is, the Car of Tomorrow is out of the barn, the Southern 500 ain't coming back and a softening fan base has now been T-boned by grim economic times. People have to make tough choices. Give them a product they're ambivalent or steamed about, they'll maybe choose to pass it up.

"As far as ticket sales, there's no question that our economy is tough right now," Chevy driver and South Boston native Jeff Burton said yesterday. "This racetrack has a long history of being sold out, and it is a cause for concern. I'm not concerned about the health of our sport. Our country goes through ups and downs, and we're in a financial down right now. It will come back, and when it comes back, the fans will come back."

But the thing is, he might be wrong.
Contact Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or blipper@timesdispatch.com